By Cheyenne Moore

As of March 17, Dr. Gary Morris made the decision to move all classes online; on March 24, at 8 p.m., the campus will be fully shut down. Due to this change, professors and students were given an extra week of Spring break in order to switch classes over to an online platform. However, students are still full of questions as they leave campus. Will there be refunds? Will students still receive the quality education that they signed up for, even while online? Most importantly, will the hands-on courses still be able to function as an online course? 

In an attempt to get some answers to the questions asked above, I contacted Trae Sprague, Director of Residence Life, Chelsea Stickelman, Director of Admissions, Stacy Adkins, Director of Academic Success Center, and Senior Angelica Nichols. 

Out of those, Trae Sprague and student, Angelica Nichols responded. Trae stated that he could not answer my questions at the time of the interview because he is still awaiting instruction from the Administration. Angelica, a Criminal Justice major, was preparing to take Firearms and Ballistics CRJU 315, a hands-on course, when she was informed that the class would be switching to online. When asked if refunds should be given, her response was, “I think just for the ammo because we are learning the same things, we just don’t get the hands-on experience with the weapons or get to use the items we paid for (such as ammunition).” She continued, “We also won’t get to learn how to use certain tools in crime scenes that help find measurements when a weapon may be present; we also didn’t learn how to test for gun shot residue. There’re some things we will unfortunately be missing out on but could be potentially picked up in our future classes. With that being said, it requires our higher-level classes to back track a little.”

Overall, answers are still needed, and students are still questioning this process. The Phoenix will continue to follow up as more decisions are made. In the meantime, stay well.